Stellar Evolution
by Ember Nickel
Summary: Drabble sequence: Eight moments in Rolf and Luna's life. From a next-gen fanatics pairing requests prompt: glimmer, hope, and sunshine.
1. Nebula

"Rolf?"

"Yes, dear?"

"Do you...do you think maybe we could have just...chicken, tonight?"

"Chicken?" The morning before it was "just plain toast, no margarine," and she hadn't bought Flobberworms for a month.

"Yes. I've been meaning to try those Ever-Spicy Herbs or Essence of Chim...oh dear, I don't think that's quite legal in Britain," Luna blinked. "But tonight I'm just in the mood for chicken."

"Of course, sweetheart," said Rolf.

Sighing, he turned to the kitchen. The pregnancy couldn't end soon enough, as far as he was concerned. Too many strange cravings.


	2. Brown

Rolf angrily beat at the beef as it hissed on the stove. Browning it was taking more trouble than it was worth.

Luna was pacing back and forth behind him, from the kitchen to their small bedroom. Was she...carrying away the papers from the table?

"What's going on?" he said when she returned, magicking another pile into her hand.

"Oh, hello, didn't see you behind the steam," she smiled. "Just wanted to make sure the manuscript would be safe if you burned the flat down."

He shook his head. "Next time we're going to a restaurant."


	3. Red

"They're beautiful, aren't they?" Luna said, tilting the photograph this way and that as it sat on their cluttered nightstand.

Rolf nodded. "Huh. Not so identical here, though?"

She looked closer; three-year-old Lorcan, blushing at the foot of a tree, had a crippling case of "red-eye effect," while a smirking Lysander, hovering on a toy broomstick, had no such issue.

"I'll get rid of it," he said, taking out his wand.

"No need," said Luna, as the pictured Lysander stumbled off his broom while trying to wave at his parents. "It's just a photograph."


	4. Giants

A glimmer of sunshine caught Luna's face as she made her way towards the cave. They'd been lucky to get there in the right season; a few months later and it'd be dark year-round.

"I'll go in with you?" Rolf volunteered. The boys were staying with his sister; this trek was too risky to bring them along.

"No, you'll stay here with the notebooks like you promised."

Rolling his eyes, he watched her step in, wand at the ready...

...and reemerge ten minutes later. "_Something_ has lived in there," she reported. "Magical. But not a Snorkack."


	5. Dwarfs

"_Wo ist sie denn?"_ Rolf patiently asked, while the dwarfs muttered to each other in their low-pitched dialect.

"The queen seems to be away on business, dunno how she got out of here." he mouthed to Luna, who merely nodded. "You all right?"

"I'm not sure," she admitted. "Daddy used to say we always have hope, but we only appreciate light after darkness."

"You're looking forward to being above ground again? Me too."

"I don't mind the darkness here," she said. "I'm just worried that I'll never get used to the smell."


	6. White

"I give up!" Rolf dizzily called.

"It's fine, don't worry," said Luna, gaily turning in mid-air, "we don't need to keep score."

"No. White flag, you win, I quit, this is...I'm going to be sick."

"Oh. Are you? I suppose we should land, then."

She made her way to the ground, Rolf a few seconds behind, wobbling but intact.

"There, that wasn't so bad now, was it?"

"Speak for yourself," Rolf muttered, before promptly regurgitating that morning's breakfast.

Luna sighed. "All right. I'll tell Hagebak winged-horse races are really worse with thestrals."


	7. Black

"Luna. Luna! Guess what?" Rolf beamed, waving a letter in front of her too quickly to read.

"Crumple-Horned Snorkack sighting?" she responded immediately.

"Not _that_ exciting," he sighed. "But it's an owl from Spudmore at the publishers', _Scouting Through Scandinavia_ is in the black. Finally worth the expense of the Norwegian detour."

"We're fine as far as money goes," she said dubiously.

"I know. But...it's nice to know that I can justify it to them, to myself. Make a profit under my _first _name, not just my last."

"Oh," said Luna. "Yes."


	8. Hole

"Is the glamour really quite necessary?"

"Dnlkkwzrbr."

"I'm sorry?" said Luna, tapping her overlarge ear trumpet (painted sky blue).

"I said," he grumbled, "I don't look like a wizard without a proper beard."

"You look perfectly well like a wizard without that silly glamour on."

"I don't have _hair_ anymore! I'm eighty-two years old, I deserve a proper beard."

Luna put a hand on her hip, slowly walking forward. "But you're so much more kissable without that in the way."

"Harrumph," said Rolf, but he met her halfway across the room.


End file.
